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Universe
Rise & Fall "Humanity began to achieve technological and scientific progress at an exponentially accelerated rate once we unlocked the means to fabricate everything from the molecular level up using base elements. Casting off sickness and death by reforging our bodies and digitization our minds it was beginning to look like none need ever suffer or want again. Yet our race toward extinction was not actually halted, as we had assumed, but was in fact about to receive a machine-assist over the precipice." -Except from "Lessons (yet?) Learned", by Quintus Ream of the Exchange's Reconstruction Council. The Expansion The first waves of human expansion beyond our solar system came by way of the enigmatic “spike drives” that ruptured the fabric of spacetime in order to permit us entry into the higher dimensional "interspace" where faster than light travel was possible. However, unbeknownst to those at the time, the void between space and time ever so subtly altered all those who traveled through it. Over the course of several generations this effect slowly compounded and began manifesting itself in highly unpredictable and occasionally catastrophic ways. The resulting condition became known as “Interspatial Cognition Disorder” or “ICD” but not much was actually known about it. Initially it was thought to only affect those who were already mentally unstable before entering interspace and so, despite the potential risks, the expansion continued unabated. It wasn't until hundreds of generations later that the cumulative nature of ICD and the widespread damage humanity had already suffered from it was finally discovered. Expansion all but ceased as a result of the revelations and even migration between already colonized systems became infrequent. Attempts to discover alternatives to spike drives had been made in the past with little success but never before had all humanity suddenly shared such a fervent dedication to a singular goal. As a result of this intense focus a solution was eventually found but it was an exceedingly inelegant and unprecedentedly complicated one that still could not avoid using interspace but could at least minimize the effects of ICD by significantly reducing the time spent traveling through it. The Jump Gates The jump gate network was the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the human race. These gigantic structures, capable of providing near-instant transportation for vessels between themselves and another distant "sister" jump gate, took centuries to construct and had energy requirements that dwarfed the very stars themselves. Every jump gate also had at its core an exceptionally powerful "seed" AI (artifical intelligence), one capable of self-correction, self-improvement and performing the innumerable calculations necessary to accurately launch vessels through the turbulent interspace at unprecedented speeds and successfully decelerate them as they arrived. Spike drives were eventually deemed obsolete as the jump gate network came to slowly connect all the core worlds together but they did not entirely go out of use as they were still needed for transportation between the distant frontier systems that could not yet afford to build or sustain their own jump gates and for the now infrequent, significantly less appealing continued expansion efforts beyond the fringe. So, while the frantic expansion era of humanity had finally come to a close, life slowly returned back to normalcy throughout populated space as commerce, travel and migration amongst the core systems was once again slowly reestablished. The Catastrophe As the yellow hyper-giant Rho Cassiopeiae, located near the very core of human occupied space, went supernova an interspatial pulse of unimaginable violence erupted washing over the whole of known space in seconds. Billions died instantly across all of populated space, the advanced condition of their ICD allowing the pulse to scorch a path through their synapses and evaporate their psyche. The shock wave of heavily irradiated atomic particles also blasted all the nearby systems into space dust. In systems further away from the epicenter, entire ecosystems soon succumbed to the torrent of gamma and ultraviolet radiation. In the immediate aftermath, even the core worlds that survived the event physically unscathed soon found themselves in peril as the intricate supply chains necessary to sustain their jumpgates and enormous populations had collapsed. Having become entirely cut off from the steady stream of raw materials imported from the frontier that were needed to sustain their vital fabrication technologies, their populations quickly descended into panic fueled anarchy. Those lucky enough to flee the chaos of the core worlds to the self-sustaining habitats at the frontier brought with them tales of horror, starvation and frantic warfare over basic resources, spike ships and even old, decommissioned orbital shipyards still capable of producing them as all those still trapped there attempted to secure their own escapes and survival. The decades that followed saw hundreds of billions of lives lost as innumerable human worlds failed to recover from their sudden isolation, entire populations either starving en masse or slaughtering each other in their desperation to survive. Even the few core worlds still capable of self-sustainable production of food and water still found themselves lacking countless other vital ingredients needed to maintain any semblance of their once spacefaring civilizations and eventually slid into barbarism or worse. After Rho "Now, a century later, the remnants of humanity lie scattered like dust on the fringe of our former Empire. The grand history of humanity’s golden age has been lost and its broken relics litter the stars around us. We cling to life on barely habitable rocks, floating above them on stations in disrepair or trapped in simulations as digital simulacrum without physical form. Our once great species reduced from a vast and glorious tapestry to a thread-worn patchwork of desultory collectives, struggling to decide on how and even if we can possibly move forward. Some say that this is the end. Some say it is just the beginning of a new chapter. I suppose we shall see soon enough who is correct." -Except from "Lessons (yet?) Learned", by Quintus Ream of the Exchange's Reconstruction Council. __FORCETOC__